


with one glance into my eyes

by spaceshuttles



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, One Shot, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24657052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceshuttles/pseuds/spaceshuttles
Summary: A collection of Catradora meet-cute one-shots! I might expand on some of these later. Most of these will be based off of prompts that I'll be posting in the notes at the beginning.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 62





	with one glance into my eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: We always see each other in the elevator and it’s insanely awkward because we both live on the top floor of this really tall apartment complex and we always ride in silence because the one time I tried talking to you I fucked up REALLY bad.
> 
> And
> 
> We always see each other in the elevator and now we’ve gotten stuck because of a power outage so really, I guess we should get to know one another at this point.

Low thunder rumbled in the sky as sheets of rain continued to pelt down. Catra had been standing outside her job for the better part of twenty minutes, trying to time when the downpour would let up. She hated rain. She also hated working at Best Buy, the second place she’s worked at that month (holding down jobs wasn’t really her forte while she tried to complete her Master’s degree in Computer Science and participate in a research group). She cursed under her breath at her boss, Ms. Weaver, who kept her back an extra half hour to clean the staff break room. It was like she _knew_ it was about to rain and wanted to screw up Catra’s whole evening. Sure, going home and watching shitty reality TV shows while she made food in her microwave wasn’t really life or death, but Catra had her routine and it got screwed up, damn it. It was the principle of the matter. She cursed again.

And just then, the rain slowed slightly and Catra ran for it. “Come on, just three blocks,” she muttered to herself and was lucky for the first half of her jog home until the rain picked back up. She groaned as she walked into her apartment building, wringing her hair out onto the welcome mat. She then called the elevator and continued to curse to herself as she walked in and pressed the button for the twenty second floor. “Fuck Weaver, fuck Best Buy, fuck the rain, fuck-”

“Hey, hold the elevator!”

Catra groaned but stuck her arm out: another delay in her mission of eating microwave food and becoming one with her couch. She tried (and failed) to not stare at the woman who walked in. She had sun-burned cheeks and sun bleached hair and really unfairly nice legs. The relieved smile Catra received as the girl walked in and set down her suitcase was worth the wait. She cleared her throat, pointedly looking at the wall of buttons. “Which floor?”

“Twenty-two- Oh!” the blonde exclaimed, seeing the button already lit up. “You live there, too? I just moved in this month.”

Catra nodded, still staring at the buttons. “Yeah, I’m in 2214, what about you?”

The girl grinned and ran a hand through her hair, not looking even half as disheveled as Catra felt after the heavy rain. “You’re kidding me, I’m in 2218! We’re two doors down from each other.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Adora.”

“Catra,” she replied, finally trusting herself to not totally ogle the other woman. “Holy shit, what happened to you?” she questioned, taking notice of a large bandage wrapped around Adora’s bicep. Adora’s extremely muscular bicep. Catra looked away. 

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Adora replied with a laugh. “I went scuba diving with some friends for the weekend, we just drove back this afternoon. I got stung by a jellyfish if you can believe it! It hurt pretty badly, but whatever, all part of being in nature. We were invading their habitat, after all.”

Catra widened her eyes. “That’s crazy. I would’ve punched the jellyfish for you or something.”

Adora slowly raised an eyebrow and snorted. “What?” 

Catra replayed what she said in her mind and resisted the urge to slam her own head into the elevator door. The door opening prevented her from following through. She tried to drown out Adora’s laugh and the “bye!” she called out after her.

* * *

Catra and Adora ended up having similar enough schedules that they ran into each other _all the time_. When Catra was coming home from work, Adora was coming back from two hours at the gym. When Catra was leaving for class, Adora was leaving to go do volunteer work or save an endangered species or whatever someone like Adora would probably do. The elevator rides, up and down, all twenty-two floors, were spent in total silence. 

Adora had tried to make polite conversation the first few days it happened, but Catra’s mortification prevented her from ever giving more than one word answers so her efforts stopped.

“Why am I like this?” Catra moaned as she placed her forehead next to her keyboard. She was currently in the computer lab with some of her fellow grad students, Entrapta and Scorpia, spending a late night trying to feed a new line of code into their research program. It was proving harder than they all thought, but they could feel a breakthrough coming so they kept at it. They were currently taking a snack break and Catra was sharing a new elevator occurrence since That Day.

“Aw, cheer up, wildcat,” Scorpia said as she popped a mini sandwich into her mouth. “Oh, these are great, thanks Entrapta,” she whispered with a grin. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s been so long she barely remembers the conversation happened. It’s weirder to not talk to her considering how many floors there are.”

“I know I know, but I didn’t tell you.” Catra leaned all the way back in her chair and lifted her hands to her face as she spoke, “She and her two friends, Bowl and Glitter or whatever, were in the elevator yesterday and when Adora introduced me they gave me this _look_.They totally knew who I was!” she exclaimed and threw her hands up. “It looked like they were trying not to laugh. She totally told them about the jellyfish thing!” 

“Mini Kit Kat?” Entrapta offered sympathetically, holding one out. 

Catra gumbled as she ate the small candy and gestured as she spoke with her mouth full, “It was so awkward and she’s acting like it didn’t even happen.” 

“Well, did you ever bring it up? You could have said you were sorry or something like that,” Scorpia said as she took a handful of the mini Kit Kats. When she was met with silence she turned to look at Catra, who slowly blinked at her. “Seriously? You didn’t even _try_ to apologize? You’re awful at communication, Catra.”

“Am not! I’m literally, like, awesome at communicating.” 

Entrapta giggled and quickly typed on her keyboard. “I could come up with a formula that proves how low your communication skills are compared to the average person. Let me do that now, one second…” she muttered out and typed even faster.

“No! Ugh, no, I know I’m bad at it, fuck,” Catra whined out as she weakly pressed the delete button a few times on Entrapta’s keyboard until she stopped typing. “What am I supposed to do about it, huh? I offered to punch a jellyfish for my super hot new neighbor, you can’t just recover from that! She’s probably, like, an animal rights advocate or something like that. You should have heard her talking about ‘habitats’ or whatever. I totally offended her.”

Scorpia shrugged. “Just _try_ talking to her, it’ll probably make you both feel better. Well, back to work,” with that she put her headphones on and leaned forward to squint at the computer screen. Catra groaned and mimicked her position. Now she would do research; she could worry about running into hot blondes later.

* * *

_’Fuck yeah I’m gonna order some pizza, roll a dutchie, and put my feet up for the next four hours,’_ Catra thought as she turned the corner for her apartment building. She had just finished closing for Best Buy after Weaver overheard her talking shit to another co-worker. It was the most painful hour of her life as she was left alone in the large store with Weaver and was lectured on respect and how if you don’t respect your boss then how can you respect your customers, Catra? 

So yeah, she thought she deserved some pizza and weed. And of course she saw Adora a few buildings up ahead, holding a bag of takeout and talking on the phone with the other hand. Catra sped up her walking and slipped inside the building. She looked at the elevator button, shrugged, and started for the stairwell. _’Twenty-two flights of stairs and no chance of running into Adora, no problem,’_ she thought and began going up.

Catra made it up twelve stories before realizing that she was being stupid and enough time had passed that the elevator would be Adora-free anyway. Imagine her surprise as the door dinged open and she was met with the woman in question. _’Fuck me.’_

“Hey, Catra! Visiting a friend on the twelfth floor?” she asked politely, now holding a pile of mail in her hand in place of her cellphone. 

_’Of course she stopped to get her mail, of course.’_ Catra shrugged, staring at the buttons like she usually did. “Something like that.”

“Or were you ignoring me?” 

Catra blanched. “What?”

Adora frowned and scuffed her shows on the floor of the elevator. “I don’t know, I saw you while I was walking up and then saw you run in and now you’re here? Seems a little weird, Catra. Did I do something?” she asked quietly, “I was really looking forward to getting to know you.”

Now Catra felt like an asshole. “No,” she muttered out. She was in no way prepared to have this conversation. 

“Well, you’re not being very neighborly,” Adora huffed out and fixed her eyes on the elevator door. The floor continued to tick up until the elevator squeaked to a stop and the lights flickered. She glanced up at the numbers of the elevator and cocked an eyebrow. “Is the elevator still moving?”

“What?” Catra asked, pulling herself out of her thoughts. 

“Look,” Adora said and gestured with her head, “we shouldn’t be stopped on eighteen right now.” 

Sure enough they had stopped moving. Catra tried the open door button which didn’t work and then she tried pressing the ‘22’ option again, but nothing moved. “You’re shitting me.” 

“Hold on,” Adora said and placed down her mail and bag of food. She placed her fingers between the doors and when she pushed them open was met with the landing between two floors. “Shit.”

“I didn’t know you cursed!” Catra said with a laugh.

Adora shrugged and moved in front of the buttons. “Yeah, well, the situation warrants it.” She pressed the call button and sighed, drumming her fingers on the wall as she listened to the dial tone.

* * *

“It’s been a staggering five minutes,” Adora groaned as she checked her phone. When they heard it would be at minimum a half hour until the fire department would be able to come, the two of them had resigned themselves to sitting on the floor. “Do you want food?” she asked, opening up her bag and pulling out a few boxes of Chinese takeout. 

Catra eyed her and gingerly took the offered box from her. “Thanks,” she said slowly. When the food hit her nose she thought of her pizza and smoking idea and sighed. 

The two ate in silence with Adora quickly finishing a box of food and moving onto a second one. Through noodles she said something that sounded like “my metabolism” and continued to chow down. She swallowed harshly and wiped her mouth. “How was your day?”

“What?” Catra laughed out while setting down her food. 

Adora shrugged and stirred her food. “I don’t know, we’re stuck in here for a while. How was your day?”

Catra thought for a moment and scratched her jaw. “Honestly, pretty shitty. I really want to quit at Best Buy, but I just got a raise so whatever I guess.” It had been the longest job Catra had kept on account of it being so close to her apartment so even when she was running late it was never too badly.

“Do you work there full-time or something?” Adora asked before stuffing more food into her mouth. 

“Oh, god, no. If I had to see my boss everyday I would probably have a nervous breakdown. I work part-time- I’m a grad student at Etheria U.”

Adora nodded and smirked. “So you are capable of having a full conversation?”

Catra blushed and looked down at her food. “Yeah, whatever, how was your day?”

“It was going really well until now, honestly. This food was for my two best friends, we were gonna do a movie night. I’m sure they’ve already seen the elevator and are putting two and two together right now.” She shrugged again and side-eyed Catra not-so-inconspicuously. “So…” 

“So…?” Catra retorted, raising an eyebrow. 

“Are we cool or what? You’re trapped with me, you kinda have to talk to me now.”

Catra groaned, leaning her head against the wall. “Damn, I kind of thought we’d be able to just act like that wasn’t a thing.”

“You can’t ignore your problems!” she replied with another huff. Catra put her hands up in an act of defeat and sighed. “So…” 

“Yeah, so, I’ve been super embarrassed about what I said. Punching a jellyfish? Like, what the fuck. I know you talked to your friends about it.” She looked down, feeling even more foolish and more like an asshole now that the words had left her mouth.

What Catra wasn’t expecting was a laugh. “Are you serious?” Adora asked with a grin. The blush she got in response was all the answer she needed. “I thought you were super funny for saying that, of course I told my friends! They were acting weird because I told them I had a pretty neighbor.”

Catra’s brain short-circuited and she thought of her research and if it were possible to run a diagnostic on a human system. Maybe that’s what she could do her thesis on. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Oh my god, Catra, _that’s_ what you’re focusing on?” Adora asked with another laugh. 

Catra groaned and rubbed her face. “Yeah, it’s high praise. You’re, like, super hot. You have this whole Amazon warrior thing going on.” 

“Pff, thank you, Catra,” Adora responded. 

Catra wasn’t sure if she saw a blush on her cheeks or if she had gone and gotten herself sunburned again. She stuck her hand out, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry we had a bad start. I’m Catra, I live on your floor.”

Adora gave her a soft smile, clasping the offered hand. “I’m Adora, nice to finally meet you. What’re you studying at Etheria?” 

They talked back and forth and soon enough felt the elevator move and bring them back down to the ground floor. The two got checked over by firefighters and were sent on their way. Bow and Glimmer joined the two of them on their ride back to the top after the elevator was given the all clear by the fire engineer. Catra bid the other three goodnight as she made her way to her door, but was stopped by a hand on her wrist. 

“Hey, we’re probably just going to order pizza for them or something and watch movies like planned. If you’re free you should come- they’ve been dying to meet you,” Adora said softly. 

Catra watched as the two friends whooped and marched to Adora’s door, holding a handle of alcohol in the air. They _did_ look like fun. “Yeah, sure, as long as there’s no cover fee to get some of the booze,” she responded with a smirk. 

Adora hummed and crossed her arms. “Actually, I can think of a cover fee.” Adora nervously brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, “Are you free next Friday? There’s a new restaurant I’ve been wanting to try out.”

Catra tried pretty hard to not look flustered. “Are you asking me out on a date as extortion?”

“I mean, when you put it that way…” she replied with a grin. 

“Yes, I agree to your terms,” she said cheekily. “Are you picking me up?”

Adora nodded as they walked to her apartment. “I’ll be outside your door promptly at seven,” she said with some posh accent that Catra wished wasn’t so cute and dorky. She couldn’t wait.


End file.
